HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 95 



guam minus intellexerunt. Page 994 and note. — Mr. R. P. Knight, in his 

 inquiry into the Symbolical language of ancient Art and Mythology, 

 {Classical Journal, vol. xxiii. p. 14) states, upon the authority of Maximin 

 of Tyre, that when Alexander entered India, "Taxilus, a powerful prince 

 of the country" (he was raja of the Tacskasilas) "showed him a serpent 

 of enormous size, which he nourished with great care, and revered as the 

 image of the God whom the Greek writers from the similitude of his attributes 

 called Dionysus or Bacchus." Whether the Cashmirian worship of snakes 

 was mystical, at least in the earliest ages, may be questioned. There is 

 likewise reason to suppose that this worship was diffused throughout the 

 whole of India, as besides the numerous fables and traditions relating to the 

 Ndgas or snake gods, scattered through the Purdnas, vestiges of it still re- 

 main in the actual observances of the Hindus. It seems not improbable 

 that the destruction of the whole serpent race by Janamejaya, the son of 

 Paricshit, recorded in the Purdnas as a historical fact, may in reality im- 

 ply the subversion of the local and original superstition, and the erection 

 of the system of the Vedas upon its ruins. 



No. III. 



Of the Pandcea Regio of the Classical Writers, 



In this as in several instances we may trace apparently very different 

 places, some not very far remote, however, and all not improbably resolva- 

 ble into the same, or at least in some manner connected. We have in the 

 first place a city of the Sogdians, Called Panda, as; Pliny, vi. 16, Ultra 

 Sogdiani, oppidum Panda: and Solinus (c. 49) Ultra hos (Bactros) Pan- 

 da, oppidum Sogdianorum. The same authorities mention a Gens Panda or 

 Pandea gens, whom Pliny (vi. 20) places low down on the Indus, near 

 its mouths. Solinus (c. 52) probably intends to assign them a similar 

 site. Arrian says the Pandsean region was denominated after Pandaa, 

 the daughter of Hercules, .it being the country in which she was born, and 



